


Search the World (To Find Something Like We Have)

by PersephoneJones



Series: The Long Way Home [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bi!Harry, But mostly angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Closet!Louis, Everything is fine in the end, M/M, Masturbation, POV Harry, Sequel, So. Much. Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 06:52:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14279406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersephoneJones/pseuds/PersephoneJones
Summary: Louis glares at him. “We are not doing this,” he says, warningly.Harry rolls his eyes ostentatiously. “You’re right. We’re not. And if you’d quit running from me long enough, you’d notice that I’m leaving you alone. I have no intention of trying to make you do anything. You didn’t even give me a chance, Lou,” he says accusingly.Louis looks at Harry somewhat curiously. “You’re right,” he replies. “I assumed that you would want to handle...the incident differently and I acted on that assumption. I’m sorry.”The incident. Harry dies a little inside when those words come out of Louis’ mouth. That’s all it is to him. Just a one off, a shameful little secret he can lock away with all the rest he’s been keeping all these years.Or, The One Where Everyone is Sad for a While, But Then Louis Gets His Shit Together. Finally.





	Search the World (To Find Something Like We Have)

**Author's Note:**

> **So you know how sometimes you post a fic and then you go back and re-read it and see about eight hundred things you want to change, so then you spend two hours basically rewriting the entire thing?**
> 
> **No? Just me?**
> 
> **If you have looked at this story already, prior to 4-11-18, you might want to read it again, is all I'm saying. I think it's even better now.**
> 
>  
> 
>  Original Notes: Hello, lovelies. So what we have here is a three-part series. I actually wrote the part one and the middle half of the part three, at the same time, not meaning for them to necessarily be related. But then I realized the third part complimented and contrasted the first quite nicely. But there was no way to get from part one to part three without a transitional piece in the middle. This is the transitional piece. We get the smut out of the way first thing and the rest is just a good, old-fashioned angst-fest, with a gloriously satisfying ending. I apologize for the lack of smut, if that's what you're here for, but it doesn't really have much of a place in this chapter of the story. I _can_ promise that it's leading up to utter filth in part three...so there's that. 
> 
>  Title is from the song "No One" by Alicia Keys.  
>    
> Stay in school and treat people with kindness, kids.

Harry wakes with a start. He isn’t sure what has disturbed him, but, still in the haze of sleep, he half-expects Louis to be lying next to him. Louis isn’t, of course. It had been a dream. It’s the dream he’s had nearly every night since he sucked Louis off backstage a month ago. Oh, the details are a little different, each time, but the bottom line is always the same. In the dream, he _and_ Louis are in love. In reality, only half of that equation is true. Maybe. Harry honestly isn’t certain. When Louis had let him do what he did, Harry thought he’d seen a faint glimmer of the feelings that had gotten them in this situation in the first place; the feelings that had started to surface in Louis’ consciousness, back in 2010; feelings he’d embraced, at first, but then, in one catastrophic, heart-wrenching, earth-shattering week, had rejected and forced back into the shadows, breaking Harry’s heart in the process. 

At the time, the other boys had voiced concerns over what it meant for the future of the band, but Harry loves performing, loves these boys too much to have let it all end. So he and Louis have an unspoken understanding that the show will go on…it just goes on with the two of them pretending they don’t know each other. It’s been nearly four years, and Harry still misses Louis, misses the way they used to cuddle and tell each other everything, the way they were inseparable and openly affectionate, and the things they did at night when they shared a bed, or a tour bus bunk; two young, inexperienced kids learning each other’s bodies and what was the quickest way to bring each other off before the rest of the boys came bursting into the room and caught them (again), then took the piss out of them for days afterward.

Harry sighs deeply and rolls over onto his back. Sometimes the dreams are just him and Louis talking, or cuddled up on the couch, and sometimes they’re even more abstract than that. There is no clear, mental picture, it’s just…emotion. This morning’s dream, however, was one of the more explicit variety. Harry isn’t as fond of those, only because they leave him frustrated and desperate when he wakes up. When he closes his eyes, he can still see the picture in his mind…on his knees, in front of Louis, as Louis relaxes and gives in to the desire that he’s worked so long and so hard to will out of existence. Harry can still feel his lips wrapped around Louis’ cock and hear Louis’ moans in his head. He remembers the plaintive, needy noises Louis made and how it felt when Louis came and Harry swallowed gracefully, like he wasn’t out of practice and it hadn’t been a couple of years since he last gave a blowjob. 

His mind shifts to Louis’ face afterward. He looked wrecked and utterly beautiful, cheeks flushed, pupils blown wide, looking sated, but also like he might have been game for round two if they hadn’t had a show to put on. As Harry recalls every detail of that glorious 20 minutes, his cock, which has been half-hard since he woke, begins to demand attention. Harry sighs again. He knows where this is going, and, as always, he is utterly torn. He feels guilty for wanking to fantasies of Louis, but it’s all he wants anymore, and he can’t seem to stop thinking about Louis for more than five minutes at a time. His mind’s eye and his dick refuse to listen when he tells them he should think about something else. As far as he can tell, he’s completely lost the ability to jerk off without relating it to Louis. 

Harry reaches into the bag on the bedside table and fishes out a small bottle of lube. He dribbles some in his hand, and then wraps the hand around his cock. He starts out stroking slowly, lazily, as though he doesn’t have any specific goal in mind. But, soon enough, images of Louis begin to materialize in his head. Louis naked, lying on the bed, touching himself as he waits for Harry. Louis sucking Harry off, maybe in the back of a limo on the way to an event. Sneaking into a supply closet together, minutes before a show, to rub one out on each other’s thighs, just to release the tension. Harry tips his head back and his hand starts moving faster. His breathing turns ragged. He is so close. He imagines Louis fingering himself, opening himself up to take Harry’s cock, and that does it. He can’t help but whimper Louis’ name a few times as he starts to orgasm, come shooting up his chest and splashing onto the butterfly tattoo. He gives himself a few more gentle strokes, and then wipes his sticky hand on the sheets, making a mental note to leave housekeeping a big tip when he checks out of the room.

He sits up and stretches, working the kinks out of his back. It’s time to get ready for the day and head to the venue for some last minute rehearsal…and the brunch spread that Sarah has undoubtedly put on. Harry’s pretty sure that the only thing he likes better than waffles is sex. Yes. Definitely. His list of favorite things goes: sex (preferably with someone other than himself), waffles, music, babies, and tattoos. He’s quite the well-rounded individual, if he does say so himself. 

In the loo, Harry examines his reflection in the mirror and decides he can push it one more day without washing his hair. (Twitter is already relentless about him not washing it often enough, anyway, so why not give them something to chatter about?) It only takes him five minutes to shower off, another five to apply the necessary toiletries, and then he’s pulling on a t-shirt and jeans. Harry’s seen those memes online that say that your stripper name is the color of your underwear plus the last thing you ate or drank, but he isn’t wearing underwear, and he doesn’t think Commando is a very good stripper name. It sounds like he’d kick the stage door open and start lobbing grenades, which would be great, in a hostage situation, but not ideal in a strip club. Name-wise, he’d rather go for something completely, undeniably stripper-ish, like…Lacy Pink Chardonnay, or something. If you’re going to do a thing, you may as well do it up properly, he muses, and then realizes he’s just wasted ten minutes of his life trying to give himself the perfect stripper name when he can’t even walk across a stage without falling over, let alone swing on a pole while wearing high heels. The lack of waffles and sex with an actual human is clearly affecting him. Fortunately, he knows right where to go to get one of those two necessities, so he grabs his wallet and his three phones and heads for the hotel lobby to find one of the drivers who has been hired to wait around and take the boys wherever they want to go.

When Harry arrives at the venue, he’s in a fairly good mood. Not only did he have an orgasm to get his day off on the right foot, he’d thought of three new puns in the car on the way over and is planning on working them into the show tonight and seeing if anyone notices. He’d tell the lads about it but they’ve repeatedly told him he’s not allowed to tell jokes on stage anymore, so he figures it’s best just to surprise them. It’s very often much easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Especially when Liam is involved. 

Harry pops into the meeting room where the band/staff command center has been set up. He expects to see a crowd, but there is only Lou T., and, sitting across from her, hair mussed, looking tired and a bit stroppy… _Louis_. Harry swallows hard and forces out a completely casual “Hey, guys,” before wandering over to the table where the food is laid out. Normally he’d have grabbed a plate and filled it, but all the nerve endings in his body are now on high alert and he feels jumpy. Since…IT happened (seriously, Harry tries not to refer to it in such ominous terms, but it _will_ keep popping into his head that way) there is usually a buffer at least four people deep when he and Louis are in the same room. Oh, it always _appears_ incidental, but Harry sometimes wonders if Louis is somehow manipulating the situation to guarantee they won’t be left alone together. He isn’t sure how Louis would manage that, but if anyone can, it’s he. The irony is that Harry had decided, almost immediately after it happened, that he isn’t going to push Louis. He currently has absolutely no plans to try to corner Louis and force a conversation. So Louis needn’t, he _really_ needn’t, regard Harry, every time he walks into the room, with a level of suspicion that people usually reserve for Russian politicians, or men who drive around in windowless vans.

Unfortunately, despite Harry’s concerted effort to give Louis time and space, the fact remains that the two of them work together, and, ergo, cannot possibly avoid each other all the time. That's not to mention the fact that, whether Louis likes it or not, things have changed. Their relationship, or lack thereof, had been stagnant for years, but then for one, short, beautiful window of time, Louis dropped his guard, dropped the act, and allowed Harry to love him again. Whether or not Louis has any desire to continue down this path with Harry, a conversation about what happened is going to have to take place. It doesn’t have to happen now, though, and Harry just wishes Louis would stop dodging him long enough to realize that Harry isn’t stalking him.

Distracted, and wanting to see how Louis is going to handle sharing a table, Harry foregoes the plate, grabs a plain waffle, and begins munching on it as he walks over and sits down next to Lou. He has a hunch that she knows something is up, as she’s been giving both him and Louis probing, suspicious looks for weeks, and has, on several occasions, looked to be about to say something, before thinking better of it and clamping her mouth shut. It's actually fascinating how physically pained Lou looks when she has to remain quiet. Today, when Harry sits down, she looks at him, then Louis, then back to Harry, smiles angelically, and gets up from the table. “You lads have a nice brekkie and I’ll see you in the dressing room in an hour,” Lou throws back over her shoulder, beaming at them with insincere innocence. As the door closes behind her, Louis looks as though he’s about to bolt, and Harry has had enough.

 “Louis,” he says in his commanding voice (which he rarely has the opportunity to use, so that’s fun). “Don’t leave. Not yet.”

 Louis glares at him. “We are not doing this,” he says, warningly.

 Harry rolls his eyes ostentatiously. “You’re right. We’re not. And if you’d quit running from me long enough, you’d realize that I’m leaving you alone. I have no intention of trying to _make_ you do anything. You didn’t even give me a chance, Lou,” he says accusingly.

 Louis looks somewhat floored, and Harry can almost see the gears turning in his head, replaying the last several weeks. Harry is quite sure Louis is realizing that he's wasted a lot of energy trying to stay one step of someone who wasn't trying to catch up to him.

Louis looks at Harry somewhat curiously. “You’re right,” he replies. “I assumed that you would want to handle...the incident differently and I acted on that assumption. I’m sorry.” 

_The incident_. Harry dies a little inside when those words come out of Louis’ mouth. That’s all it is to him. Just a one off, a shameful little secret he can lock away with all the rest he’s been keeping all these years. Harry knows how plainly his emotions can be read on his face, so he hastily looks down at the tablecloth for a few beats, until he can get a grip. He arranges his face into what he hopes is an expression of casual indifference, and then looks up at Louis.

 “Alright. Well, now you know. And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop treating me like you’ve caught me lurking outside your house wearing a bloody hockey mask and carrying an axe.” 

 Louis looks like he might smile, but then he averts his eyes and purses his lips. Harry knows that face. It’s the “Too Cool to Smile” face, which also doubles as the “Determined to Stay Mad” face. Louis looks back at Harry. “Okay,” is all he says.

 Harry stands up so quickly he almost knocks his chair over. He needs to get out of there, get anywhere that Louis _isn’t_. “See you in the dressing room,” he mutters, and quickly retreats before Louis can respond. Not that Harry expects him to have anything to say, anyway. 

 In the hallway, Harry starts walking, rapidly, away from the breakfast room and any other room where he might bump into Louis again. Down the hallway, and around the corner, he spies a single bathroom. He ducks in, flips the lock, and rests his forehead against the door. You will _not_ cry, he tells himself, repeating it several times before he finally believes it. Although that hadn’t been pleasant, it hadn’t gone as poorly as he’d feared it might. He’d at least gotten the message through to Louis. That’s more ground than he’s managed to cover in the entire month prior. As sad as it is that the bar is set so low, he has to admit that the conversation was a success.

 Harry takes a few deep breaths. He’s fine. He’s made it through three years of worse; he can get past this, too. He leaves his hiding place and heads back down the hallway to the dressing room.

 

* * *

 

A week later, Harry is backstage, lurking on social media while having his hair trimmed by Lou T. To say things have changed since he and Louis spoke would be overstating the situation a bit, but Harry has noticed that Louis is definitely more relaxed when they’re in the same space. He no longer looks like he’s two seconds away from dashing into oncoming traffic every time Harry walks into the room, so that’s an improvement. It’s nowhere close to where Harry wishes they could be, but the reality is, he has no idea if they will ever be there and he needs to make peace with that. Again. He knows that he got his hopes up prematurely, and he's seen no evidence that Louis is going to have a change of heart, now, or ever. If Harry hadn’t already come up with the idea of a hiatus, he would definitely think of it now. It’s too hard to be around Louis anymore. Oh, it’s always been hard, ever since that conversation that still ties Harry’s stomach into knots when he recalls it. But it made sense, the one long, unbroken streak of estrangement. It was what he expected. Then Louis had…had allowed Harry to do _that_ to him, and Harry had momentarily seen behind the facade. Now Louis wants to pretend it never happened, wants everything to go back to the way it was, and Harry thinks there’s no way that he can go along with it, because he knows the truth now. He knows that Louis still has feelings tied to what happened so long ago, and that, somewhere deep inside, there is at least a small part of him that still wants Harry. Harry can’t suss out how he’s expected to forget this and return to pretending that he and Louis are mere acquaintances; how he’s supposed to convincingly play along with this narrative he so wholeheartedly despises. He’s been a lot of things, in his short time on the planet, but he has never been disingenuous. He's not sure he could be if he tried.

Lou makes a cheeky comment about Harry’s hair and he looks up at her in the mirror, and laughs a big, open laugh, complete with dimples and crinkly eyes. He stops laughing as suddenly as he started, when he sees Louis watching him in the mirror. Louis is on the other side of the room, curled up in the corner of a couch, phone in hand. Harry has been so engrossed in Twitter that he hasn't been paying attention to Louis, who'd slipped in the door five minute after Harry had arrived, waiting his turn to have his hair done. Louis had looked a little anxious when he came in, but said, "Alright, Harry?" in acknowledgment before proceeding to the furthest point away from Harry he could find without actually leaving the room. Harry had sighed and Lou had given him yet another suspicious glare, and Harry'd quickly opened up Twitter on his phone to make himself look busy.

But now Louis is staring at him with an expression that seems to be a mix of curiosity and something Harry can’t interpret, or is afraid to interpret. What’s more, when he meets Louis’ eyes in the mirror, Louis doesn’t immediately look away. He holds the eye contact and the expression on his face doesn’t change. The boys stare at each other for what seems like a small eternity, until Niall comes crashing through the door on a Segway, cackling, and the strange, heavy vibe that has descended upon the room evaporates. After order is restored, Harry tries to recapture Louis’ gaze, but Louis steadfastly refuses to look up from his phone again. Harry leaves the room and finds a quiet spot where he can be alone and replay the moment over and over in his mind. 

 

* * *

The following week, the boys are back home in London. They're at Radio One, for an interview, and Harry isn’t looking forward to it. He’s tired of answering the same questions about the hiatus, and whether it’s permanent, and what his plans are for his time off. Harry has very few complaints about the last five years, but one he will cop to is the unoriginality and repetitiveness of about 90% of the interviews they do. Same questions, same stupid jokes, same lame attempts to tease one or more of the boys, using references to things that happened years ago and have already been hashed over, and then rehashed, in the media. It's always annoying, and occasionally exhausting, and it tests Harry's patience every time.

Not only is Harry already dreading this interview, it’s stuffy in the green room, and there’s still forty minutes before they’re meant to be on air. He feels like he's going to crawl out of his skin, like there's a spring made of pure energy that's coiled somewhere his chest, about to burst and level everyone in the room with its shockwave, and, okay, yeah...he's being a little overdramatic right now, but he's bored and frustrated and also had four cups of coffee before he even got to the studio. And he doesn't usually drink coffee but he hasn't been sleeping well lately and he's tired of feeling stupid and sluggish by 10am. When Harry realizes he's unconsciously and somewhat violently bouncing his leg up and down, shaking the entire couch and causing Niall to stare at him, he excuses himself and heads for an exit he’d noticed at the end of the hall. He assumes it opens to the back side of the building. The door is cracked, now, propped open with a brick, which seems a bit strange, but he understands when he steps outside. Louis is there, smoking a cigarette in the chilly December air, jacket zipped up and a beanie pulled down around his ears. He looks up in surprise when Harry materializes, but Harry senses that Louis isn’t going to run. Not yet, anyway.

Harry leans his back against the wall, mirroring Louis, and waits, gauging Louis' mood, before he speaks . “Truth or dare?” he says, without preamble.

Louis glances sideways at him and replies, “Truth.”

 “Would you rather…be here doing this interview, or spend an entire week wearing nothing but your X Factor audition outfit?” Harry asks with a devilish grin.

 Louis shouts with laughter. “Honestly? It depends on my schedule. If I don’t have to leave the house, I’ll take the outfit. It’s not even a question.” 

 Harry smiles at Louis, and Louis smiles at Harry, and then they fall silent. It’s strangely comfortable, like they haven’t been in years. Louis stubs out his cigarette and Harry thinks how, if they were together, he’d beg Louis every day to quit, beg him to take care of himself, because so many people love him and wouldn’t know what to do without him. He can’t say any of that, though, because it’s not his place anymore. Harry wonders where his place is, and hears the words _“Next to you”_ echoing in his head.

 “Hey, Harry?” Louis tentatively breaks the silence.

 Harry tries to will his heart to stop pounding so loudly in his chest, and he responds. “Yes?”

 “What are you going to do during the break?”

 At first, Harry thinks Louis is being funny, satirizing the predictable, timeworn questions they are about to be asked for the hundredth time. But when Harry sneaks a glance at Louis, Louis has his hands in his pockets and is staring at the ground, with a serious face. 

 “I…I’m…” Harry's media training kicks on and he is about to run through the standard, vague list of answers that he always gives when presented with this question but the words won’t come. He thinks he understands what Louis means.

 “I’m going to miss you lads. That’s what I’m going to do,” Harry tells him.

 “Even me?” Louis asks in a small voice.

 Harry’s mind is racing and he’s torn, torn between keeping his answer light and non-threatening…or telling the truth. Harry chooses truth.

 “Especially you,” he replies.

 Louis’ breath seems to catch in his throat and he swallows hard. He looks up at Harry and Harry’s heart skips a beat and then breaks, all over again. He’s lost count of how many times he’s painstakingly put his heart back together, only to have it fall to pieces because of the way Louis looks at him, or _doesn’t_ look at him, or because Louis makes a flippant comment that’s meant to be funny but actually cuts Harry down to his soul because Louis never used to speak to him that way. He was always safe from Louis’ sharp tongue, even while Louis poked fun at the other boys mercilessly and indiscriminately. Not anymore. Louis makes snarky comments and when Harry looks at him in hurt surprise, Louis looks right through him and pretends everything is fine.

Now, though...now Louis is looking at Harry in a way he hasn’t looked at Harry in a very long time, and he’s not running away, and Harry thinks he could reach out and touch Louis and Louis wouldn’t stop him. Louis isn’t hiding right now. Harry can see the emotions playing out across his face. Intentionally or not, he’s letting Harry in again and Harry wants to grab hold of him and hang on forever, before the walls go back up, but then they hear someone inside calling their names and the spell is broken. Louis hastily turns away and swipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his jumper and Harry just has time to register this before the show producer is throwing the door open and telling them they need to get back to the green room. Harry closes his eyes, briefly, and takes a deep, steadying breath. Then he looks at Louis, and Louis gives him a small nod, and they walk back inside.

 

* * *

 

The interview, while typically inane, turns out to be a much-needed distraction. When it’s over, though, Harry’s mind resumes reeling and he's back to square one. He’s in a hired car that’s gliding over the city streets while he stares out the window and tries to make sense of his thoughts. He understands that something happened between Louis and him, but he doesn’t know what it was, and he’s not sure how to make sense of it. Had he imagined the raw emotion on Louis’ face? Was he only seeing what he wanted to see? Louis _had_ let his guard down, that much he knows for sure. There is no way Harry could have invented that moment. The question is, had it meant as much to Louis? Had their conversation, while unremarkable on the surface, felt as heavy with unspoken apologies and reconciliation and _hope_  to Louis as it had to Harry?

Suddenly, Harry knows what he has to do. He has to see Louis, has to go to him and force the conversation that neither of them wants to have. If Louis has rebuilt the walls around him, has retreated into himself as he’s been doing for so long that Harry can barely remember what he was like before, then Harry will have an answer. He’ll know that the exchange behind the Radio One building was meaningless banter, and that his life is exactly the same as it had been before he'd walked out that door. He'll know he needs to move on, for good, this time.

Harry leans forward and tells the driver he’s changed his destination, gives him Louis’ address. He sits back in his seat, closes his eyes, and tries to regulate his breathing, a calming technique that he usually only needs during turbulence while flying.

 In what seems like an unfairly short amount of time, considering he has no idea what he's going to do once he's actually there, the car pulls up in front of Louis’ house. Harry thanks the driver and sends him on his way. No need for him to wait. Either Harry will be staying a while, or he will soon be in no shape to interact with anyone. Harry ignores the knots in his stomach, wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans, and rings the bell.

 Louis answers the door, dressed in sweats and an oversized jumper, looking soft and sleepy and more like home than any place Harry has ever seen. Louis looks surprised to see Harry on his doorstep, but he holds the door open, without comment, and stands aside to let Harry in. Harry steps inside, stops, turns, and this is it, this is how it ends, or how it begins. 

 He looks up. Louis is watching him with a gentle expression. Everything Louis feels is apparent on his face, and he's making no effort to disguise it. He has a peaceful aura about him, and he appears more relaxed than Harry has seen in a very long time. A question forms on Harry's lips but his courage fails him and he can't ask it. Louis looks at the floor, and in a voice that's barely above a whisper, he says, "Can you ever forgive me?" and Harry wants to laugh, or shout, or cry, because he understands what Louis means; understands the momentous thing that is happening right now. Louis looks up then, vulnerability radiating from his being. Harry feels it like a knife in his heart when he realizes Louis is expecting him to reply "no," expecting to be shouted at and to have the anger borne of years' worth of suffering heaped on him, and is prepared to accept it.

Louis continues to hold Harry's gaze, and Harry knows that Louis has dismantled himself, taken his entire being apart and laid every piece of himself out for Harry to see. The overwhelming intimacy of it makes Harry's breath catch in his throat. He looks at Louis, and he doesn't see the barbed comments and lies and the years of coldness. What Harry sees is his past, present, and future, all wrapped up in a single person who he loves, has loved from the start, without reserve. 

“It’s always been you,” he affirms quietly, half to himself. Louis looks at Harry questioningly but Harry is done talking. He covers the distance between them in two steps, takes Louis in his arms, and kisses him. Louis responds by wrapping his arms around Harry’s neck and they melt into each other. It's been so long since they held each other like this, but their bodies slot together like puzzle pieces, like they'd never stopped, and this, _this_ is the reason they are both here, the reason why every decision they've ever made in their lives has lead them to this point. This has always been the only way the story could end. 

Louis runs his hands down Harry's chest and up under his shirt, searching for bare skin, and it's so familiar that Harry can't remember what anyone else's touch feels like.  Harry’s hands are gripping Louis’ hips and his entire body is humming under Louis’ touch, his senses registering only Louis. In this moment, nothing else exists. He moves his mouth to Louis’ neck, nipping at the skin there and then soothing it with his tongue. Louis’ eyes are closed and he’s holding onto Harry as though his life depends on it, mumbling something that Harry can’t quite make out, until he really concentrates on the words. 

“Never, never, never,” Louis is repeating. “I'll never let you go again.” 

 “You can’t,” Harry whispers. “I won’t let you.”


End file.
